Abstracts

Rationale: Rationale: Specific types of epilepsy are more common in adolescence, as idiopathic generalized syndromes or symptomatic localization-related syndromes. Besides, incidence of epilepsy varies as a function of age. Recently, it has been described a focal benign syndrome, probably idiopathic, in adolescents (Capovilla G, Gambardella A, Romeo A et al. Benign Partial Epilepsies of Adolescence: A Report of 37 New Cases. Epilepsia 2001; 42(12):1549-52). Thus the aim of this study is to describe the pattern of epilepsy that is observed in adolescent patients in an outpatient neurology unit.Methods: Methods: In a prospective design, epileptic patients, aged between 11 and 20 years, were referred to Neurology Dept – Sao Paulo University Medical School – from January 2006 to December 2006. The crises and epileptic syndromes were classified according to the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) for epilepsy criteria. All patients were submitted to electroencephalogram (EEG), performed during drowsiness, sleep and wakefulness.Results: Results: 61 patients (38 boys and 23 girls) entered the study. Seizures started at the mean age of 10.86 years (range, 1-18y). The average time of crises onset was 5.32 years (range, 1 - 16y). In the male group, seizures started at the mean age of 11.3 years (range, 1-18y) and, in the female group, at 10.13 years (range, 1-15y). According to etiology we observed that the idiopathic epileptic syndrome was predominant (over 50%)in both groups; the symptomatic epileptic syndrome was present in 23.7% of the male group and 21.7% of the female group; and the probably symptomatic epilepsy syndrome was observed in 23.70% and 21.74% in male and female group, respectively. Our study showed that 32 (52.4%) patients have met idiopathic epilepsy syndrome criteria. Amongst with these patients 17 (53.35%) have generalized activity and 15 (46.8%) have focal activity. Patients with generalized idiopathic epilepsy had the onset of seizures at 12.35 years of mean age. Otherwise, patients with focal epilepsy had the onset of seizures at 11.9 years of mean age. Twenty five patients (41%) had symptomatic or probably symptomatic epileptic syndrome, one patient had had non epileptic seizure (pseudo-seizure), and another one had acute symptomatic seizure. Twenty-three of them have focal activity.Conclusions: Conclusion: Despite the fact that idiopathic generalized epilepsy is the most frequent form of epilepsy in adolescence, other type of benign epilepsy localized-related has also been detected by few authors in this age group. In our study, idiopathic generalized epilepsy was the most common form of epileptic syndrome in adolescence. Otherwise, based in our results we believe that benign epilepsy localized-related are more common than we suspected before. In our cohort 11 patients (18%) presented a focal activity, confirmed by EEG, with normal neurological examination and normal MRI. We suppose that these results indicate a presence of a benign focal syndrome that started during adolescence. It is necessary to perform additional studies to confirm that diagnosis.